An Interstellar Lifeboat for Humanity 378
cravey writes "From the people who brought you the Oceania project so many years ago comes the Lifeboat project. An attempt to create a spaceship for the purposes of saving the human race from the singularity predicted by Vernor Vinge. Lots of talk about nanotech accidents and biological accidents wiping out civilization, but it has a neat picture of the ship. :)"
Insert your own (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Insert your own (Score:2)
Re:Insert your own (Score:2)
Possible flaw in their plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Planet P [planetp.cc] - Liberation with Technology.
Re:Possible flaw in their plan (Score:3, Insightful)
You appear to have confused science fiction with reality. There's no context in which a statement like "nanotechnology will be available" (emphasis mine) can be taken seriously. Apart from the fact that the word "nanotechnology," by itself, is too broad to have any relevance... oh, wait.
And once the singularity happens all bets are off, but chances are nanobot probes will be heading off in all directions at close to the speed of light, which means their ship will more than likely get infected, unless this singularity is benign.
Sorry, I should have read your whole post before responding. I didn't realize until after I'd already hit "reply" that you're a loony.
Carry on.
Re:Possible flaw in their plan (Score:5, Informative)
Everybody is uninformed about nanotechnology. It's a term like "theology" or "philosophy," too broad to have any real meaning.
That said, let me summarize what I know about nanotechnology so you can decide if I'm insufficiently informed. It all started with Feynman's APS talk back in '59. If I remember correctly, it was entitled, "There's Room at the Bottom," or something like that. In it, he talked about the theoretical basis for molecule-scale structures: manufacturing through evaporation, the challenge of lubrication, and so on. Interestingly, I seem to recall, Feynman essentially ignored the implications of the Uncertainty Principle in his talk. That may be my imagination, though; it's been a long time.
Meanwhile, von Neumann was doing theoretical work of his own on self-replicating systems. (His work actually predated Feynman's talk by several years, but that's close enough to merit a "meanwhile" from me.)
Drexler first put the ideas together in a serious way in 1981, and in greater detail in his seminal '86 book, Engines of Creation. (I sold my copy years ago to a used book store, so don't expect any chapter-and-verse quotes from me.) He postulated self-replicating devices for manipulating atoms individually; he called them "assemblers." If I remember correctly, he also coined the term "gray goo" to refer to the nightmare of a runaway assembler that devours all available raw materials to manufacture more copies of itself, burying the surface of the Earth in a homogenous sludge.
Since the 80's, Drexler and others have done a mountain of work on nanotechnological ideas, most of them centering around the idea of the atomic-scale self-reproducing assembler. But that's not the whole story.
Back to the 1970's. We have these two basic ideas: atomic-scale manufacturing (Feynman) and self-replicating machines (von Neumann). Drexler jumped to the conclusion that these two ideas can be made to work together and ran with it. But the blanket term "nanotechnology" has since been applied to any non-biological physical process that occurs on the nanometer scale, not just Drexler's blue-sky ideas. That's why I say the term "nanotechnology" is essentially useless in any sort of technical discussion. Electron microscopy is nanotechnology. The synthesis of drugs is nanotechnology. PCR amplification of DNA is nanotechnology. Electroplating is nanotechnology. Drexler's self-replicating assemblers are nanotechnology. Everything is nanotechnology, in one way or another. And some ideas that can fairly be called nanotechnology are... well, let's just say they're a hell of a lot less plausible than others.
To take a specific example, Drexler's ideas of atomic-scale assemblers that replicate themselves and also assemble other atomic-scale structures are here already. They're called enzymes, and they're everywhere. The problem is that they only work inside a narrow range of temperature and environment. If the pH is too high or too low, the enzymes-- or "assemblers," if you prefer-- simply don't work. So they have to be contained inside little self-regulating environment bubbles: cells. And cells-- well, most kinds, anyway-- are too fragile to exist for long without external support. Thus, organisms. And even when an enzyme is in the perfect environment, contained inside a cell that's in turn protected by an entire organism, it still only works about half the time. Even something as seemingly harmless as sunlight can attack enzymes like artillery shells, blasting those fragile molecules into pieces before they can do their jobs. But the biological processes are so ridiculously redundant that 50% or more is an acceptable rate of failure.
Drexler envisions a very clean, precise atomic-scale manufacturing process. He assumes that this is possible because we're talking about putting atoms in place one at a time; there's no reason any nanotechnologically manufactured object should ever have a flaw in it. But, while that's theoretically possible, it's a lot harder to achieve than you might think. Remember what I said about temperature and environment? Nanotechnological-- or, if you prefer, biological, for at this point they're the same thing-- processes are fragile and delicate.
So jumping to the conclusion that we will have nanotechnology is meaningless, because nanotechnology means any number of things that cover the spectrum from the mundane to the fanciful.
The "Singularity" = the Rapture for atheists (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Vinge's fiction, but the Singularity thing strikes me as an apocalyptic/transcendent/eschatological scenario for people who can't stomach the Book of Revelation.
Face it: the real underpinnings of the "Singularity" are not any kind of hard science, but human yearning for redemption and transformation. All this talk about the growth of AI is a joke -- in fact most of the field of AI is a joke, since no one can even define what natural intelligence is, much less the artificial kind. And technological trends like Moore's Law are not in any way bound to continue, yet geeks treat them like scientifically proven laws of nature, and then extrapolate the emergence of an Ubermind.
The impulses behind religion -- a desire for collective change and a future utopia -- need not be manifested in traditionally religious ways. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, ostensibly anti- or non-religious people believed in a faith called Marxism, that promised an all-cleansing revolution and a workers' paradise. The "Singularity" nuts are just the latest iteration of this.
There's a term for the movement of people who want to cyborgize themselves, which escapes me at the moment (exomorphs? something like that). But I imagine there's a lot of overlap between them and the "Singularists."
Re:The "Singularity" = the Rapture for atheists (Score:2, Informative)
Abandon ship (Score:5, Funny)
Sure they can save humanity (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Abandon ship (Score:2, Funny)
Captain: Make it slow.
Save the planet... (Score:2, Funny)
Sadly... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sadly... (Score:2)
The best lifeboat (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The best lifeboat (Score:2)
"wipe out humanity? (Score:5, Funny)
thing though...first we need to focus on more
immediate goals." - 12 Monkeys
Re:Peace War (Score:2, Informative)
the Singularity as he conceives it
you should read (hell in my opinion you
should read all of his shit)
marooned in realtime.
Marooned in Realtime discusses extensively
the singularity from the other historical
side. Where people that didn't experience
try to figure out what actually happened
to the human race. When I finished it,
I immeadiately reread it, and I don't usually
do that.
Spaceship not large enough (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spaceship not large enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, they're pushing security and escape. One idiot on the wrong trajectory, perhaps assisted by a bucketful of gravel, would put paid to their marvellous toy - hereinafter referred to as `the basket'. Better to build space elevators and have many baskets.
Better still, of course, to not bugger up our planet in the first place.
There are many grand schemes for bringing that about, but all of the make the same basic mistake (one way or another). They either assume that they're working with altruists (in which case any system would work and these idealists are already redundant), or that their subjects are all idiots (so they build idiot-compatible one-size-fits-all systems, which of course fail).
The only way that this can work is by changing basic human nature. And of course, we just left the sphere of materialism, welcome to religion, we hope you enjoy the life.
Re:Spaceship not large enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Does the whole huge ass thing fall to earth causing major scale damage (given there is a lot of civilization near by) - does it flap around like a hose with nobody at the end - or does it float off into space?
So - if there is a major catastrophic event which requires the evacuation of earth via our space elevators - do you really think that the elevators bases would be stable enough (or even flexible enough) to withstand some sort of event that would assumably be coupled with earth shaking upheaval (sp) to such a degree as to make the elevators skyscraping towers of death?
Does anyone seriously know? what considerations have been given towards this issue?
(Not to mention the possibilities for terrorist attacks. For god's sake wont somebody please think of the children!)
Re:Spaceship not large enough (Score:2, Informative)
`Fiiiii-bre!' -or - `When elevators come down' (Score:5, Interesting)
Not much, unless the design deliberately called for it to be under tension. The things are in orbit, after all. Some designs call for the `tower' base to be mobile (a ship). It's not really a tower, it's really a bridge anchored on nothing (from the middle out).
Breaking it in the middle would be a bit more disastrous. The bottom half would whiplash around the planet (or maybe the bottom tenth, quite a lot would burn up and/or shatter as it re-entered), and what happened to the other half would be highly dependednt on stuff like where the Moon was at the time.
Terrorist attacks would not be easy to carry off; the elevator would be a very thin low-visibility target to hit, and air defense would be relatively simple. Some quite small computer-co-ordinated guns on the travellers would prove quite lethal to aircraft and missiles alike, and I imagine that provision would be made for directing and focussing the lift laser against larger and/or slower targets. The designs that I've seen would be immune to meteor strikes up to quite sizeable impacts (they're curved - like a tape measure - so even a side-on strike would get at most half of the fibres).
Terrorist attacks against space colonies would be much more of a problem. From orbit, a rocket the size of two soft-drink cans could loft a couple of kilos of small ball-bearings into a widely dispersed cloud on a collision course with a colony. This would be very difficult to even detect, let alone parry or dodge.
Terrorist attacks on ground targets from orbit would also be a worry. `We have many rocks, Man.'
Re:Spaceship not large enough (Score:3)
One hopes... (Score:2)
Re:One hopes... (Score:5, Funny)
With the end of the world right around the corner the population of the planet would be clammering to get to their site. The server obviously auto ejected itself into orbit after what it perceived to be massive panic on the web.
If only more nitwit sites had features like this... *sigh*
My suggestion... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My suggestion... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My suggestion... (Score:2)
But there's no atmosphere on Mars! That's an awfully expensive way to kill millions of people! Wait a minute... that makes you an EXTREMIST! Good plan... we'll send you and the Ayatollah and Bin Laden straight to Mars. A little less direct than Zyklon-B, but no less effective.
I'm sure Ashcroft would approve.
Re:My suggestion... (Score:5, Informative)
It's also the name of a Metal group [telia.lv] from Norway that ought to disinfect their own style.
Re:My suggestion... (Score:5, Funny)
I do not think millions of people will die.
As a long line of Mars movies have educated me, only about 1 to 10 people die because of no atmosphere. Then the hero(es) fixes it all up and Mars has atmosphere. And everyone is saved.
References to get you started in Mars terraforming
1. Total Recall [imdb.com]
2. Red Planet [imdb.com]
Re:My suggestion... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because an atmosphere is not breathable doesn't mean it does not exist. Take a seedy nightclub or pub as an example. Just because the cigarette smoke, BO and other such cruft makes it absolutely unbarable to breath doesn't make it a vacume.
Mars' atmosphere is mainly CO2 with a little N2 floating around so it would just be like a paper bag that has been breathed into and from for a while but with a little more CO2.
I guess you are right that someone would die after landing on Mars because it has no breathable oxygen. However they would live longer than you thought because they would not pop like one would on a planet totally devoid of atmosphere (at least not as fast). The temperature would not be as extreme either. I guess if you packed George Bush, Osama Bin Laden, Areial Sharon, Yasser Arafat and anyone who supports these people into the rocket with a few scuba sets, some warm angora sweaters and some strong Burbon (for staying warm on the cold martian nights) they could form nice friendly community until they either run out of burbon/oxygen or renounce violence and we can fly them back home.
Come to think about it that is a pretty cool idea.
Re:My suggestion... (Score:2, Funny)
Is the "e" key on your keyboard broken? It seems to be failing when you need it, and then firing off at random when you don't.
Might want to have that looked at.
Re:My suggestion... (Score:3, Interesting)
That depends, if there were less scuba sets than people it could get very interesting very fast.
Besides, the atmosphere on mars is very very thin, much lower than at the top of everest if I remmeber correctly. The problem with really low air presure (ignoring the lack of any o2) is that your lungs start to leak water ending in what is effectively drowning. Even with an o2 supply climbers effectively start dying once the air gets two thin. Exactly how long you could last in the open on mars with an o2 supply I couldn't tell you but I'm not sure I'd like to find out.
Re:My suggestion... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My suggestion... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My suggestion... (Score:2, Funny)
Where did NASA go wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
After the gold rush (Score:3, Funny)
Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Oh fuck I just broke the DMCA. Sorry, Neil.
Seriously, this theme has been around in modern media. The genesis project from Star Trek, that crappy Don Bluth film, etc. In a lot of sci-fi's the earth is a dump and most people live elsewhere, like in Cowboy Bebop. Sci-fi's are often uncannily accurate at predicting the future.
Call me a crazy hippy, but in a lot of ways the Earth is a life form and we are like it's organs. If the meaning of life is to reproduce, then wouldn't terraforming and colonizing a new planet be the ultimate form of reproduction?
Re:After the gold rush (Score:2)
It's certainly possible that humanity could destroy itself and/or the world with any one of hundreds of new technologies, but the odds are worse than they were in the days of the Cuban missile crisis, and we pulled through that one. Maybe you should check the Doomsday Clock [thebulletin.org] next time, folks.
Re:After the gold rush (Score:4, Insightful)
Sci-fi's are often uncannily accurate at predicting the future.
Uhm. Jules Verne, yes, he did predict things that did happen - well, submarines, and we did go to the moon. We didn't go to the center of the earth. I don't care about Googling for his other books right now.
Then we get to HG Wells... Wars with aliens, time machines, anti gravity, ...
Since then... None of the 20th century SF seems to have gotten the world around the year 2000 right. Cell phones are everywhere, personal computing is cheap and used for games, there's the Internet, and maybe we'll even finish the current space station in ten years. There is some cloning and biotech and we use it for medicine. There have been a few terrorist attacks, and now the whole world is obsessed with them.
Now what did SF tell us... Rockets! Space colonies! World War Three! One World Government! Aliens! FTL travel! And of course, flying cars.
My first guess is that SF has been performing less (at predicting the future) than you would expect of pure chance. But there have been great books :-)
Re:After the gold rush (Score:3, Interesting)
Read some of John Brunner's work, notably Stand on Zanzibar [scifi.com] and The Shockwave Rider [scifi.com]. Written in the 60s and 70s, it's scary how well they seem to be predicting the early 21st century.
anyone find it ironic (Score:3, Insightful)
What a unique, new concept! (Score:3, Funny)
Someone's been reading a bit much Greg Bear... (Score:2)
A better idea... (Score:4, Funny)
Either that, or hope that when we go bye-bye, the next smart Earth race brings us back Jurassic Park style in hopes there's a storm and we escape our cages.
Re:A better idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A better idea... (Score:3, Funny)
You're in luck, I just got an email promising a "5000% Increase Or Your Money Back!" I'll send it to you.
Steps to Success (Score:4, Funny)
2) Get your server Slashdotted and spend all your money recovering the data from the dead hard disks
3) Project Lifeboat comes to a screeching halt due to lack of funds
4) Die miserably on Earth
Oh the humanity! It wasn't supposed to happen like this. [fade out] Happen like this. [fade out] Happen like this...
Seems a little early. (Score:3, Funny)
A good idea.
But if it's The Singularity they want to dodge it's probably a bit early to start. As The Singularity approaches the cost of such a venture will drop like a rock. (Of course, like buying a computer you have to stop waiting and plunk down cash SOME time. In this case, preferably before something breaks. B-) )
Now dodging other stuff (like an extinction-level event such as a comet-head impact) should not wait until the incoming comet is sighted.
Re:Seems a little early. (Score:2)
that depends on what you mean by 'sighted'
if you mean waiting until one can see it unaided with the human eye, then you're absolutely on the ball there.
however, even gravity slingshot comets take months to travel through the solar system... even if we somehow, with all our fancy radio telelscopes and computer aided optical telescopes manage to not realise a rather large chung of mass is on a colision course with the earth until after it's passed pluto we've still got a matter of months to say, put rockets on it and move it into a collision course with jupiter, or blow it up whichever is easier. And remember, the weapons of mass destruction we have now make hiroshima look like a mosquito bite... we can easily pack a billon tons of TNT worth in explosive force into play against an incoming projectile, and thermonuclear bombs are a lot cleaner for the bang than a pure fission bomb.
Save humanity from the Singularity? (Score:5, Insightful)
(There's a lot of interesting things at the Singularity Institute [singinst.org] by the way.)
So either the poster is on crack, or ve represents a new and radically different perspective on the Singularity than I have ever seen in print. Which is it?
Re:Save humanity from the Singularity? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure running away is the right answer, but I would be cautious in calling the technological singularity a "good thing." Those who are a product of it will likely consider it one, but those of us who precipitate it likely will not, and will long for the "good old days" from before the singularity.
Anyway, the guy in the article isn't afraid of the singularity, as such, he's afraid of the dangers that might arise (accidentally or through terrorism): grey goo from nanotech, killer diseases from bioengineering, Terminators from AI, and so forth. The singularity will simply accelerate development of these technologies (and hopefully, ones to counter the dangers, too).
Re:Save humanity from the Singularity? (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly the supposition is that a radical and nearly complete transformation will take place, and that due to the vast qualitiative differences engendered by the intervening changes, we will find the nature of that change unpredictable.
But, that doesn't mean that we won't change too. Either we will figure out ways to increase and alter our intelligence, or our machine superintelligences will figure it out for us. So there's no getting from here to there without becoming something you'd never recognize.
Now, maybe you don't like that idea right now, and perhaps you'll stay on the sidelines. But these things have a way of seeming friendly and innocuous after repeated exposure. Remember the "computer-phobia" of the Eighties? They were going to take away our jobs? Now my 75 year-old in-laws have a PC with XP and a Cable modem. They had to get it because the Kiwanis people and the neighborhood garden club people pestered them to get email. Yes! Kiwanis and garden club!
What will you do when you can't understand your granddaughter's 5th grade math assignment? Will you finally decide, hey, I'm going to get vastened. What's the point of clinging to this outrageous mental modality anyway - like keeping a box of all your nail clippings. Worse, it's like running into a burning building to save your box of nail clippings.
So I expect relatively few people will make it to the big one without adequate preparation.
Re:Save humanity from the Singularity? (Score:2)
Sounds like the phobia was justified.
Umm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Funny)
Lifeboat (Score:2)
Mark
Vinges Singularity (Score:5, Informative)
See here Vernors Take [caltech.edu]
This has been a Borg Production
Re:Vinges Singularity (Score:2, Informative)
So far I have read these:
---The "deep" series, A Fire Upon the Deep [amazon.com] and A Deepness in the Sky [amazon.com]. Epic in scale, millenia apart (and despite that, there's one character appearing in both books
---Across Realtime [amazon.com], this one being composed of two previously released books, The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime... great SF concepts, like the "bobbles"!
---True Names. This is an amazing short novel that in 1981 "created" cyberpunk 3 years before Neuromancer, using magic and a fantasy world as a metaphor through which the mind saw the Net, and there were already glimpses of the Singularity! It was reprinted last year in this book [amazon.com] together with 11 essays by other authors about its effects.
There's also a short story collection going by the name of The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge [amazon.com] which I haven't read yet, but judging by the quality of his other work...
And don't forget to check the Singularity paper referred to in this thread!
Read, enjoy, be amazed!
Re:Vinges Singularity (Score:2, Funny)
--
Sometimes SF weenies cheese me off. (Score:4, Flamebait)
Look, meat puppets, you are PART OF THIS ECOSYSTEM, you are stuck here in the mud with the rest of us. You are never leaving this planet, at least for any appreciable length of time. Ever. So how about taking some of the energy you put into escapist fantasies and focus those gigantic brains of yours on improving what we've got, instead of running away from our problems, huh?
-Peterb
PS: That goes for you escapist religious freaks, also. Same disease, different symptoms.
Re:Sometimes SF weenies cheese me off. (Score:3, Insightful)
Might as well get "cheesed" about the tides... (Score:2, Insightful)
Its been that way throughout human history (throughout life's history?) -- when things got too crowded, too violent, too oppressive, too competitive, too boring, etc. some (usually the very rich and the very poor) moved on to look for new places with better opportunities.
And in general, it seems to pay off -- intelligence, and skill don't make people successful, getting there first with lots of friends does. It just makes sense, the competition is less, so what's needed for success is less.
But just like bacteria in a pitri dish, when we run out of room, we will die off. Sure there's too many people, but who's gonna volunteer to fall on the sword first? You? Stop breeding? You? For everyone who says "yes" all you will have done is take yourself out of the running, life doesn't seem to favor the self-eliminating.
But nature has the answer: We call them War, Famine, Pestilence, and Natural Causes. We still fear them as much as we ever did. There's a reason we call them the four horsemen of the apocolypse: Because they are nature's answer to "surplus inventory." There's also a reason why "celibacy" and "suicide" aren't included -- they don't have what it takes for mass population control -- if they did, nature would have promoted them by now.
So while your advice might be the rational answer, it doesn't seem to be the instinctive one, and whether we want to admit it or not, instinct and habit drive us much more than reason.
"A person is smart, people are dumb, panicy dangerous animals, and you know it." -- MIB
We've known it ever since we became self-aware. And its the arrogance of our self-awareness that makes us think we can change any of it.
So, go ahead change it I mean the question is so simple: "How does one change life into something its not?" We already know the answer -- its what we spend our "lives" trying to avoid.
Re:Sometimes SF weenies cheese me off. (Score:5, Insightful)
If for no other reason, one day, Sol will die. I, or my intellectual heirs, plan to leave by then. You are welcome to stay.
We have a 5 billion year reprieve on that, so I am not too worried about that today, but I do think about it from time to time. And as a "real" scientist (as opposed to SF), I like to think I am doing a bit to get us to that point.
In the mean time, we still owe it to ourselves to work out the space travel thing (which I have no doubt we will). The universe a giant playground, and it seems kind of booring to spend our whole lives on one planet.
Re:Sometimes SF weenies cheese me off. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure we may want to leave at some point, but if you are talking about saving humanity, there is an awful lot of humanity that needs saving right here first.
You call someone a "small minded demon of impotence" because you would rather save your own ancestors than the millions who will die this year alone due to intransigence on the part of rich nations? Well gee I guess the selfish gene is alive and well in your pool.
Re:Sometimes SF weenies cheese me off. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you care about your heirs (or the heirs of mankind) 5 billion years from now? Even if they exist, they don't care about you...
If all there is to your life is "getting off the planet" for some distant descendant, then God help you; your life is meaningless.
Moores Law of Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Bull! We currently have the technology (assuming big bucks) to send multi-generational colonies to other star systems. Are you saying some "ancient spirit" will reach out and grab our asses back to Earth if we try? Been smokin' too much hemp perhaps.
Given what I call the "Moores Law of Terrorism" [1], eventually it will be possible to for a small group of people to wipe out the entire human species (via nukes, biokillers, nanokillers, etc.)
Why risk that when we can save at least *some* of our asses so that humans as a species survive rather than allow all 100% to die. (Note: It probably will not be me in the tin can.)
[1] The number of people who a small group of terrorists can kill doubles every X years.
Don't be silly (Score:2)
Gigantic brains improving what we've got is what brings the Singularity on!
Not gonna happen (Score:3, Insightful)
An Entire Interview (Score:5, Informative)
Summary: Interview Part 1
"The Lifeboat Foundation "
A matter of life and death.....
Full Story: Space N Stuff has recently learned of the existence of the above Foundation, as a result of a Guest who visited Space N Stuff and contacted me.
An email request was made and Mr. Eric Klien, Founder and President of Lifeboat Foundation , generously agreed to an interview. As a matter of fact, once Mr. Klien responded to the questions in this interview, I discovered this is like eating potato chips, you can't be satisfied with just "one". At a later date, Space N Stuff will again contact Mr. Klien for a follow-up to this initial query.
Please understand that this is a very complex subject and due to space constraints, not all of the details can be presented, however, we are providing LINKS at the bottom of this Interview so that you can check their site for yourselves.
In a nutshell, the purpose of Lifeboat Foundation is to research technology in a serious effort to build vehicles, or "Arks" that will house permanent residents, away from Earth. In essence, self-sustaining colonies would be established, one at a time, in an effort to save Humanity. Lifeboat Foundation 's basic concept of leaving Earth
This premise is a result of facts that cannot be denied. Human Beings are finding more and more ways to destroy the Earth, and......... each other.
Their goals are straight forward:
By 2004, they hope to educate the public as to 'coming dangers', promote efforts to preserve life, encourage advancement in Space Technology and fund SETI research.
By 2010, the efforts to develop self-sustaining technologies will be in full swing.
By 2018, complete the development above, launch a for-profit Corporation that would have as its primary goal , to put the first self-sustaining Space Colony in orbit, 248 miles above the Earth, and have subsequent colonies, further from Earth.
By 2020, to promote free enterprise in the conquest of Space.
Space N Stuff : Mr. Klien , your site provides a great deal of background information regarding your goals. However, I do have a series of questions to pose:
Space N Stuff : If I understand correctly, based on your current projections, people will not be off this planet until approximately 2020. In view of the seemingly endless strikes of Terrorism globally, will your "Arks" be too late?
Mr. Klien : It will be a close call.
In a technology timeline produced by British Telecommunications (a multibillion dollar conglomerate based in the United Kingdom) which we have a copy of at http://research.lifeboat.com/btexact.pdf [lifeboat.com], it was predicted that in as little as three more years terrorists will unleash dangerous bioweapons on the public. It stands to reason that creating self-sustaining space stations during the time between this prediction and total extinction will be a non trivial task.
Space N Stuff : It is my interpretation that each 'Ark' will be self-sufficient to accommodate 1,000 permanent residents and 500 visitors. In addition, those who are chosen will be the winner(s) of a lottery or benefit from "Lifeboat scholarships". While security is one of the top priorities for The United States, will that be a priority onboard an Ark? Will Lifeboat screen those who enter/win said lottery or scholarships? In other words, will criminals either present or future be included? If not? Would that be discrimination?
Mr. Klien : Needless to say, each passenger will undergo an intense screening process before being allowed to board. Someone like Martha Stewart, who may have done a little insider trading, would still be considered a potential candidate. But a convicted murderer would have little chance of being accepted as a candidate.
Space N Stuff : Human Nature, being just that, "human"
Mr. Klien : Each colony will be free to create its own laws and standards of conduct. Security officials will have the benefit of a confined station and its finite number of passengers when monitoring suspicious or malicious behavior. And, of course, the use of practical safeguards such as psychological testing will have to be in place for those onboard who have access to dangerous technologies.
Space N Stuff : On this planet, we have various means to cope with and handle death. Since these colonies have no capability of returning to Earth, how would deceased individuals be cared for?
Mr. Klien : Long term, we intend for the colonies to repopulate other planets-- including the Earth. As for those permanently living on spacestations, burial traditions would be unlikely. The departed could, in the fashion of a sailor's burial at sea, be ceremoniously launched into the sun. Simple cremation and cryonic suspension are additional possibilities. In all cases, memorials could also be created to both honor those who have passed and provide comfort to those who have lost loved ones.
Space N Stuff : Although the world has made significant progress with various Space Programs, we still find 'glitches' that delay progress, at great expense. How will Lifeboat be different in this regard? Since the colonies are forever 'out there' how will replacement parts be stored? It would seem to be quite difficult to predict in advance, how many of each, would be needed to keep the Arks functioning at tip top performance.
Mr. Klien : The development of self-sustaining technologies is essential to this project. We certainly don't want to replicate the Skylab and Mir experiences where they had to toss their junked space stations into the ocean.
To create effective self-sustaining technologies will require, at the very least, the primitive beginnings of nanotechnology. This technology, which enables the manipulation of matter, atom by atom, could be used to stop a ship's entropy. Also, whatever plagues, fallout or weaponry was used by terrorists to wipe out life on Earth could be removed by this technology, thereby making the planet habitable again.
For the record, while it will take hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, to create nanotechnology, we will let others handle the cost. (Over a billion dollars was spent on nanotechnology development just this year.) We will just slightly adjust such technologies so they are useful to self-sustain a space station. And that is what we will spend ten years doing.
Space N Stuff : For the first time since Man has walked on Earth, scientists and engineers are capable of mind boggling research and results. Yet, our Universe is constantly changing. Solar storms are perhaps altering many of our 'normal' weather patterns. Discoveries are being made faster than the press can report. Wouldn't it be difficult to plan now, with so many unknowns?
Mr. Klien : It is always difficult to make plans based on educated guesses, but no plan to preserve mankind seems premature when you consider the consequences. Stephen Hawking warns that "You can't regulate every lab in the world. The danger is that either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us." With this in mind, can we afford to wait? Can we afford not to make plans?
Space N Stuff : Finally Mr. Klien , mankind survives in 'groups.' Families, friendships, coworkers. Would Colonies provide employment? How would normal everyday expenses be handled? Would entire families qualify to climb onboard at the same time? Those who find living in space, is NOT their 'cup of tea' will face great stress, since it appears they will not be able to return, assuming there is a planet here still in existence. Can you elaborate?
Mr. Klien : The more arks we are able to build, the more room will be available to house entire families. And considering that only a few thousand people will be in such close proximity onboard the station, meaningful bonds will be forged, new families will spring up and, with time, a sense of community will grow strong.
As to employment, consumerism will not die alongside our planet. There will still be financial reward for services rendered. A new frontier offers new opportunity. Everyone will be encouraged to stimulate creativity and to provide the goods, services and entertainment needed for the station to flourish.
Comments: Mr. Klien ? Feel free to add whatever you wish.
Mr. Klien : The idea that advanced technologies are not an appropriate match for our primitive culture is an obvious one, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out why few people are worrying about it. The answer is that non-scientists are oblivious to potential dangers, while on the other hand, those who worship at the altar of science live by the precept that future advancements will cure all the world's problems.
We are currently working on phase 4, the technical credibility, of our ARK I design and, in two weeks, I will be flying off to England to meet with a multibillionaire. Within a year or two, we expect our project to really gain some momentum!
Space N Stuff wishes to extend its sincere gratitude to Mr. Klien for his timely response and the use of his valuable time. In the near future, we will pursue additional information in the form of a follow-up interview.
In the meantime Mr. Klien , have a safe journey to England and back.
Nancy, Director of Operations, Editor
www.spacenstuff.com [spacenstuff.com]
RESOURCES:
Below you will find various LINKS within Lifeboat Foundation 's web site. It is very easy to navigate. We hope you will visit and see the details for yourself. Thank you.
http://lifeboat.com/ex/ [lifeboat.com] : Home Page
http://lifeboat.com/ex/ArkI [lifeboat.com] : Details on Ark I
http://lifeboat.com/ex/timeline [lifeboat.com] : Current and Future Goals.
http://lifeboat.com/ex/faq [lifeboat.com] : Frequently Asked Questions
http://research.lifeboat.com/btexact.pdf [lifeboat.com] : Research
they should've called it "The Love Boat" (Score:3, Funny)
Gee... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cult. (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference between cult and respectable religions are just the size of membership. Example: Eating the body of Christ, handed to you by a priest! Imagine the reaction if someone came up with this POS today. Doesn't get more "Cult'ish" than that.
Just because your are not paranoid doesn't mean your are not being followed!
Danish by Nationality not by Name by the way.
They Post This, But Never Comment on Serious Stuff (Score:5, Informative)
It's frustrating that /. posts this sort of thing, but never touches on serious stuff dealing with the Singularity. Bah to the moderators.
For example, the Singularity Institute [singinst.org] has a vast array of comp-sci-related interesting stuff about General Artifical Intelligence and its role in the Singularity. The institute and volunteers are working on Flare [sourceforge.net], a programming language for GAI development.
Then we have the Foresight Institute [foresight.org] who have a bunch of scholarly, serious things to say about nanotechnology and its implications.
Just for starters, of course. Then we have a million other resources out there, such as:
KurzweilAI.net [kurzweilai.net]
Extropy Institute [extropy.org]
at which one can learn about the Singularity and associated topics in context.
But no, we get trash like the spaceship guy. Bah, bah, bah. Reason
Re:They Post This, But Never Comment on Serious St (Score:2)
Exponential progress is a fact, and we're currently on the knee of that tech curve, but it's simply too hard for many people to accept how fast things are going to change in the near future, since our minds like to extrapolate linearly and futilely resist change...
It's easy to be cynical about the future though, after all, "where's my flying car dammit?!" is a free pass to make fun of any wild prediction, because of famous bad ones.
--
Re:They Post This, But Never Comment on Serious St (Score:2)
You misunderstand the singularity. It doesn't have to come about because of AI. It can also come about because of human augmentation with computers, let me give you some examples.
A smart person connected to the internet can research a problem faster than one in a library. As the software for research on the net gets better and better more research can be done. Hence better software and hardware can be made and people can study previous research.
This doesn't mean we will increase forever but that at the current rate we are increasing exponentially. Also the singularity is not judgment day. Some people see it that way because they don't understand. We will not be enslaved or lose our souls any more than we do so today.
Heaven's Gate (Score:2)
an interesting calculation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:an interesting calculation (Score:2)
As long as the destination environment isn't hostile, you don't need very many humans to survive (the 50/500 rule for breeding populations).
If you require an industrial base - e.g. if you were colonizing a hostile environment and needed habitats - the size of a small city would still be fine. What is the smallest community that can be self-sufficient industrially?
In summary, I think that making colonies that are viable in the long term does not require an unmanageable starting size or resource base.
Re:an interesting calculation (Score:3, Interesting)
Such a statement must inevitable rest on a set of assumptions. As such, that's not a bad thing, but it should be considered in order to understand the true nature of the statement.
At current technology, and all reasonably-likely foreseeable technology, yes, it is impossible to get even a vanishing fraction of the population off the Earth. It's impossible to even keep up with the birth rate.
On the other hand, the very definition of the Singularity is that it is the/a point past which all previous conceptual frameworks for understanding the actions of humanity fail us. ("A" because many people make IMHO well-reasoned arguments that say that Singularities are very POV-based; that for a Medieval alchemist, we're well on the other side of what for him would be a Singularity.)
Considered for instance in terms of raw energy, assuming cheap, easy fusion or better, there's plenty of power on the planet to take the whole of humanity off, and if you're willing to import power from other sources, we could take the whole biosphere with us. (Not that we want to, per se, but that it's possible.)
I'm not saying that this is likely or possible or desirable (or not), I'm just saying that such facts must be considered in context, or they can mislead you. Certainly there is no hidden natural law of the universe requiring that all of humanity stay on the planet; just the well-known one of gravity, which has several known workarounds, even at our current level of understanding.
We Are the Architect of Our Own Dilemma.. (Score:2, Funny)
It is "civilization" that created these threats and now the threats might destroy "civilization"...The Irony....
Completely off topic I just hope none of the Back Street Boys or 'NSYNC are on the same Space Ship I am on.
Just how capable are they? (Score:2)
Re:Just how capable are they? (Score:2)
And given the recent "success" of Armadillo Aerospace, I'd be a little hesitant to fund a private space program, especially with live people on board.
You know, I wish people would quit harping about that. Do you think NASA just started building flawlessly-operating Saturn Vs from scratch back in the 60s?
How will they decide who goes on or who doesn't? (Score:2)
Reminds me of the movie "Deep Impact" where they had to decide who went into the underground bunkers to live out the asteroid impact, and how these decisions split families, etc in two.
Big Brain of Death (Score:2)
Why it won't work (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why it won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
a vertical part, it keeps getting more vertical for ever, but never form a vertical asymtote. To
get a true signularity the curve will have to be
of the form 1/(x-a)^q. Another words if progress
remains exponential we never get a singularity.
There is one overlooked positive here... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:There is one overlooked positive here... (Score:2)
be careful (Score:5, Funny)
(No sense of humor? It's a joke. I'm kidding. The first two sentences are actually in the letter. I added the rest, because it's funny. Ha-ha.)
Lifeboat...to where? (Score:5, Insightful)
An underground/water boat first? (Score:2, Interesting)
More to the point of the article, we can probably establish settlements like this now, with current level of technology. Then in future a space settlement will only need to get in space and deal with problems unique to being there. Other problems that a domed settlement on Mars might face - creating a self-sustained biosphere, making repairs using only material inside and so on - will already be solved on Earth.
Possible DMCA violation here, folks. (Score:2)
Hmmph (Score:4, Interesting)
I love this quote, in relation to the fact he hasn't replied to anything Oceania in YEARS:
"Eric Klien, founder of Colossus, Inc., a web hosting company since 1995 and founder of The Atlantis Project, an ambition made obsolete by current events."
He may be on the up-and-up, but from past experience with Oceania, I have to personally assume that it is a scam.
Malachi
Lifeboat (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Arthur C Clark put it best when asked about the most amazing development of the 20th century was that "We went to the moon, and then, stopped."
No real progress has been made since then, except we have had better hardware to reach earth orbit.
(More powerful rockets and robtics...whoop to do to day, yippy skippy.)
Rocket technology sucks. The whole concept stinks, in my humble opinion. So does Solar sails, that stinks as well. These stupid and dumb propositions to push physical objects around in space are just as quaint as the 300-400 year old laws that describe how to do it. (Newtons laws.)
Not GOOD ENOUGH though for an ark.
Those crucial 30-40 years that we sat on our laurels I believe represented a critical time window when, the world had enough resources, and was stable enough to continue invest HEAVILY in space research, without polticians and short cited people to notice.
Now, it is far too expensive, our governments are basically corrupt, and way too many people are overly concerned about how much consumerism they can accomplish in one lifetime, to worry about the future beyond 1 hour of thier lives.
We basically lost 30 years since the time of Apollo, and we will pay dearly for it as small bands of humans, seek to destroy civilization, even at the cost of thier own lives for thier impident God they worship.
The kinds and sorts of technology required for long term duration in space, is something we don't posses, nor will we I do believe for another 100-300 years. Space is just too hazardous, radiation wise, relativistically wise, that an Ark launched with todays technology could become easily sterile before it even leaves the solar system.
I think I also believe that we are on a cycle. We have just too many "fairy tales" of past civilizations describing "Gods in the Sky" that would travel around the world, to discount that perhaps, we have already been here, or near to here, in our development.
Then inexplicably, EVERYTHING gets wiped out, and those that survive, tell thier children about the time when we could fly, when people could be "raised from the dead" and that wars were fought using "Great Rays from the Sun".
No, no ark will save us, because the window of opportunity has passed us by. We have proven our selves as a species that we lack the will to continue and all our eggs will be in this one basket till someone drops the basket.
The only way to stop the cycle, is for our species to completely die off, not such a TERRIBLY bad thing considering our most recent accomplishments at building ever greater ways of destroying the planet at the push of a button. Or, perhaps next time around, we will get a little further, perhaps going to the moon, a half a million years from now and actually building a base below its surface.
OR perhaps we HAVE come this far before, and even further, but failed last time as well...
-Hack
Better yet (Score:2)
Re:Better yet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:slashdot template (Score:3, Funny)
It's easy. Just click here [apple.com] and the press the green button.
Re:The Singularity Will Get Them (anyhow) (Score:2)
The new Power had no weapons on the ground, nothing but a comm laser. That could not even melt steel at the frigate's range. No matter, the laser was aimed, civilly on the retreating warship's receiver. No acknowledgment. The humans knew what communication would bring. The laser light flickered here and there across the hull, lighting smoothness and inactive sensors, sliding across the ship's ultradrive spines. Searching probing. The Power had never bothered to sabotage the external hull, but that was no problem. Even this crude machine had thousands of robot sensors scattered across its surface, reporting status and danger, driving utility programs. Most were shut down now, the ship fleeing nearly blind. They thought by not looking that they could be safe. ... a backdoor into the ship's code, installed when the newborn had subverted the humans' groundside equipment....
One more second and the frigate would attain interstellar saftey.
The laser flickered on a failure sensor, a sensor that reported critical changes in one of the ultradrive spines. Its interrupts could not be ignored if the star jump were to succeed. Interrupt honored. Interrupt handler running, looking out, receiving more light from the laser far below
...and the Power was aboard, with milliseconds to spare. Its agents -- not even human equivalent on this primitive hardware -- raced through the ship's automation, shutting down, aborting. There would be no jump. Cameras in the ship's bridge showed widening of eyes, the beginning of a scream. The humans knew, to the extent that horror can live in a fraction of a second.
How do they know the singularity society won't go after them?